


Where Do Babies Come From?

by CookieNomNomCrunch



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Except Technoblade, Family Fluff, Funny, Gen, Kinda, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, and they got IsSuEs, at least I think it’s funny, characters not people, little bitta angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28620804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieNomNomCrunch/pseuds/CookieNomNomCrunch
Summary: “Where do babies come from?”Well, a Samsung Smart Fridge of course. Philza doesn’t know how they got there, either. But when he finds three strange children raiding him for food at three AM, all he can think is, “Welcome to single parenthood, idiot.”Raising them, however, is a challenge.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Where Do Babies Come From?

“Where do babies come from, Dad?”

“Yeah, where do they come from?”

Tommy, as always, was asking questions he really shouldn’t have, dragging Tubbo along. They blinked up at him with innocent eyes, but he could tell Tommy’s grin was mischievous. It would be a day to mark on the calendars, the day Tommy wasn’t up to something.

—-

He recalled the day he had first met his children. It was three in the morning, according to the display of his Samsung Smart Fridge. He groggily rubbed his face, bristles scratching it from where the hairs were growing out. Philza bit back a yawn. 

It wasn’t unusual to end up here at odd hours. He debated his meal. Would it count as breakfast at this point? He was pretty sure he only had leftovers to reheat. The fridge was never particularly well stocked, and it was never full. It could be said there was logical inconsistency in this short story, but, I say, screw you, it’s a second hand Samsung Smart Fridge. Which I’m sure are a thing. 

He decided that he would reheat some leftover pizza. Or just eat it cold, if that seemed like too much effort, which it kinda did at three AM. Nodding his head sharply at the choice, he swung open the door and froze. 

His eyes locked onto that of a child’s. They were dark brown, one partially covered in similarly colored bangs, and wide open. His face was smudged with grime and a few smears of red sauce. As Philza stared in disbelief, the person shoved the rest of the pizza slice down their throat, an impressive feat given how much had been left prior to the act. Their clothes were torn and dirty and too large for them. With a start, he realized there was an actual child in his fridge. They might have been early into their teens, yet he was incredibly scrawny. Philza realized, with their gaze still locked, that there might have been fear in their eyes. 

His only logical thought process was that he’d have to eat something else, then. It was really early and he wasn’t thinking straight, alright? The logical trains of thought weren’t scheduled any stops during three am. But, to his horror, as he looked on the shelf above, there was a thing there. It’s beady black eyes squinted back at him, maw hinging open into a sharp tusked scowl. He almost thought it was a pig, being the right coloration and size, but he realized that, instead, it (?) was wearing fraying human clothing, and was contorted in a way Philza didn’t think swine could manage. All the food on that shelf was missing, leaving only a (surprisingly) neat stack of tupperware and a smear around its snout. 

No luck. Bottom shelf, then. To his growing amusement, it, too, held a shelf full of child, thankfully human like the one above it. They were much smaller, however, and he imagined they might be in elementary school. Their hair was an overgrown and fluffy blonde. They twisted up, clutching the middle shelf for support. His face and arms were covered in countless nicks and bruises, and his hands shook where they clutched the frame. Philza noticed bulging pockets lining the child’s cargo shorts, filled to the brim with loot from his fridge. 

His stomach growled. Which ‘his’ was unimportant (but ain’t everyone having the same pronouns a hassle?) because Philza remembered his mission. 

“Could one of you pass me the eggs?”

All three thieves jolted guiltily. The beast eyes of the pig-child looked calculating, examining Philza, darting towards exits, taking in all inputs into some sort of equation before pointing downwards.

“Second aisle, near Tommy. Can’t miss it,” it said in a gruff voice. Philza tried to conceal the shock that it-no, he could speak. Equally surprising was the fact his accent was clearly American, which they definitely weren't located in this setting-less amalgamation between Minecraft and real life. The youngest child looked indignant, before recognizing that, indeed, the eggs were on his shelf, the carton slightly dented and oozing. He handed them over to the adult, shaking slightly from either excursion or fear. Philza took them gently, thanking him. 

The smallest one, now identified as Tommy, apparently hadn’t enough strength for his perch once he was using only one hand, and with a panicked curse fell out of the Samsung Smart Fridge onto the tile floor of Philza’s kitchen. His companions burst into laughter, the...occupant of the top shelf mixing in strange snorts. The teen in the middle leaned out of the fridge slightly to get a good look, taunting the smallest boy.

“Ha! I told you you’d fall out first”

Tommy started yelling incomprehensibly. The target of his wrath only laughed more, his visible eye sparkling, as he leaned further to gloat. 

And, predictably, fall out as well. Having been from a higher shelf, physics dictated more kinetic energy, which translated into sound energy when Tommy yelled in anger at becoming the much larger teen’s landing pad. 

The boar child snorted again, before gracefully hopping out to land directly onto the other two children, who loudly protested. Philza was relieved that he stood on two legs, and seemed roughly in the same gangly-limbed age group as the middle shelf child was in. His consolation was swiftly killed when he realized that his fridge was mostly bare. Worry replaced it. Most of his food was already of questionable quality, and also probably not meant to be consumed cold. Also, he was still hungry. 

“So...who wants scrambled eggs?” 

The trio’s bickering cut off abruptly. Then, the older human piped up from where he was sandwiched in the children pile.

“We welcome scrambled eggs, but I do warn you we have refined palates and only accept the highest quality cuisine.” Philza snorted as he fiddled with the dials to start up his stove, pulling out a large bowl and whisk. 

“And that’s why my fridge has been raided. I know for a fact that the casserole in there was growing a bacteria colony,” he said. “Now, can any of you crack eggs?” 

“I definitely can,” Tommy proudly declared. 

“He means crack them without making a mess,” the pig-thing stated flatly. 

“I definitely cannot,” Tommy proudly declared. 

None of them stepped up after that, so Philza took it upon himself to make the whole meal. The trio stared him down the entire time. At one point, Philza was sure that the boar-being might attack him, but this did not come to fruition, and Philza made sure not to draw attention to the knife drawer. Half of the eggs were cracked into an unusable state, and he noticed shoe prints on one half of it that seemed the right size to match the youngest’s sneakers. Besides the (slightly burnt) scrambled egg main course, they also had a lovely (slightly burnt) scrambled egg side dish, and a dazzling (slightly burnt) scrambled egg dessert. He needed to go shopping soon. At the very least there were enough chairs at the dining table. 

“What are your names?” He asked between bites. The scrappy group of children froze. The youngest (who had to sit on his knees to reach his plate) shot an aggressive look to the swine-person, who appeared unbothered. 

“Well, it’s Tommy, innit? Cause we just hand out names don’t we?”

“You can call me Wilbur...Soot. Yeah. That sounds cool,” the human teen said, turning to Philza. The adult wrinkled his nose. Fake names? Whatever for? 

“You know that means ‘boar’, right?” The pig child piped up. 

“What? No? Why would you know that?” The newly named Wilbur snapped.

“Why wouldn’t you? Anyways, I’m Technoblade.”

“That’s not a real name!” Both of the other boys chimed in unison.

“What’s the requirements for something to be a name, then?” He asked smugly. When the other children didn’t respond in a timely manner, his snout broke into a tusked grin. “Exactly.”

Only one thought crossed Philza’s mind: Welcome to single parenthood, idiot. 

—-

It hadn’t been easy raising them. He had been in his mid twenties when he got them, and not particularly financially stable. He hadn’t ever really seen himself ever being a father, but then it happened anyways. Philza had done his best, frantically searching for parental books and resources. Getting them enrolled in schools had been a nightmare; legally, he had no authority over them. They never shared their stories prior to being in that fridge, and that left him little idea on how to adopt them. So, he didn’t. Philza was never sure how authority figures never caught on, but once a few years passed he figured that enough paperwork was built up to deflect suspicion.

Technically, they weren’t a family. 

Philza couldn’t remember the first time Tommy had called him Dad. There wasn’t some large, impactful event. It just sort of happened naturally. It made sense, too. Tommy had been barely six when he had been found by Philza. That hadn’t been the case with Wilbur at all, but Tubbo was much the same. They called each other their brothers.

Technoblade was different, however. Logically, Philza knew Technoblade wasn’t related to himself, much less Wilbur and Tommy. He didn’t think any of them were connected by blood, but it was especially obvious with Technoblade. 

He wasn’t human, after all. 

Philza had theories, of course, but he never asked. Piglins, or their ancestors the Zombie Pigmen, weren’t quite the same, though. Their vocal cords couldn’t produce the same sounds that humans could. Their brains weren’t quite as developed. Technoblade showed neither handicap. Well, his voice didn’t have the same range humans did, but. still. Technoblade was special. 

He didn’t think the species divide would affect their family; Technoblade had few dissimilarities to humans at the end of the day, and it never seemed to bother him. But the fact that he didn’t call Philza ‘Father’ like the others did was a gaping fact that bothered him sometimes. He was the oldest, he told himself. You can’t expect him to replace someone else he may remember, he told himself. 

Another thing was that Technoblade got in fights often. Well, Tommy did, too, but the difference was that Technoblade would infallibly win them. Even past the point of reason, he would pull some strategy, some trick, some unwaveringly brutal determination to win. 

Philza was always there to pick him up from the dust. Sometimes victories were closer to defeats, yet Technoblade refused to ever see it. Philza cleaned up his wounds afterwards, both silent. 

Another thing was that Technoblade always refused bandages. 

“They’re the mark of the weak,” he’d say. He could be dramatic like that. Winners didn’t need to be patched up, yet Philza was the one who did it every time. He didn’t understand how Technoblade couldn’t see the fallacy.

The silence pressed on them both as Philza rubbed the blood from the teen’s knuckles. 

“Why, son?” The term was awkward in his tongue, never used on Technoblade before. 

Had he not been pressed against the body of the child as they crowded around the sink, he would have missed the tremor that spasmed through Technoblade. His face showed nothing, reflected in the bathroom mirror. Philza had suspicions, of course, but Technoblade wasn’t a very expressive individual at times. 

“Why what?” He droned out a challenge.

The question might have been why do you keep fighting mere seconds ago, but it was different now. 

“Why aren’t we family?”

Philza kept his gaze fixed on the boy’s hands as he meticulously washed them. 

“Because I chose you,” the humanoid spoke slowly after a time. “You’re my allies. I can count on you.”

“And a family isn’t like that?”

Philza cut the tap water, rummaging through a drawer for medical pastes.

“A family can fail,” he said shortly as Philza gently rubbed medicine over the split skin.

And Technoblade had always despised failure.

—-

Wilbur had been different from the other two. Less violent, or perhaps just in a different way. He could be sadistic at times, his laughter cold and his plans stone. He and Technoblade were conniving in the same way. Harsh. Unlike his older sibling, however, Wilbur Soot had the charisma to back it up. 

(“I found him in a box on the side of the road, father.”)

It was in a frosted tone that he first called Philza his father. He used the word as a weapon against him. It cut deep. It was close to a year since Philza had taken them in, and sometimes their relationship frayed. They didn’t have the time needed to truly be family yet. 

The biting cold in his voice matched the scene. It couldn’t quite be called snow, more a slush. The half rain pelted down, sometimes as water but sometimes as ice. Wilbur and the figure stood tucked behind him dripped onto the floor. Shivers wracked the unknown entity’s body. They were smaller than Tommy, who was only seven at the time. 

The last time Wilbur had brought home a stray was a month ago, right before the winter had become more serious. It had been a dog, panting and large, perhaps some kind of husky or German Shepard mix. 

“It’s too friendly and well groomed, it must be someone’s dog,” he’d said.

“He’ll destroy the furniture,” he’d said.

“We can’t afford another mouth to feed, he’d said. 

Philza had won that battle, despite Wilbur’s vehement protests. He knew it’d be harder this time; Wilbur always had a knack for coming back stronger. Tasting defeat only made him hunger even more for victory. Being beaten only meant more time to plan, only taught Wilbur what to do better the next time. Each time, his scheme would be a little more complicated, a little more efficient, (a little more desperate) until he won.

But Wilbur didn’t have the ability to accept a loss this time. He couldn’t fall back; failure wasn’t a viable outcome. Both of them knew it; Wilbur had to win this one, and would employ every maneuver he could to achieve it. 

Because the stray tucked behind Wilbur this time was a shivering human child.

Thinking back, coming inside had been a tactic too. After all, Wilbur Soot knew Philza’s bleeding heart. He’d taken them in, after all. To send the shuddering child back into the cold winter’s wrath would be cruel, and Philza was not cruel. The dog had warmer weather to return to; the child did not.

Unlike the trio last year, at least the boy had a long sleeve shirt. It was too large, a man’s dress shirt, and hung near their knees. The buttons were mismatched, as if frozen hands had been too shaken to put it on properly. He hid his eyes under large bangs. From where their hands peaked out from the rolled up sleeve, Philza could see their fingers were almost blue. 

Sure, through Wilbur’s tactics he would eventually win, but losing was the most common outcome. He accepted it in a way Technoblade never could. Because of that, he always expected failure. (Expected Philza to fail him.)

It hurt Philza that Wilbur hissed the word ‘father’ at him. That he thought Philza needed to be guilted into helping (this time, his thoughts whispered). That he thought Philza would do anything but silently pull towels out from the bathroom, clean clothes from Tommy’s drawer, and the child into a warm hug. 

Wilbur Soot had come ready for battle only to find no resistance. 

(“Don’t worry, my dad will take care of you.”)

The second time Wilbur called him father the word rang with pride. 

—-

Tommy was a difficult child. He was loud and brash, reckless in a way that made Philza nervous. He always sported a colorful rainbow of bandaids from the various scraps he got. Turned out the injuries Philza had noticed were all due to his natural clumsiness, which soothed him. They still never spoke of their lives before. He thought with Tommy it could just be he was too young to remember, but he could always be wrong.

Only once had Tommy ever protested the array of bandaids, but Philza had pointed at Technoblade as the poor model of behavior he was. Tommy had grinned and declared that he wouldn’t be stupid and get loads of scars. Even if they looked cool, he didn’t want to mess up his appearance. Philza was glad he could cut the habit off before it started, predicting he would never get Technoblade to change his ways.

One of his more worrying behaviors was kleptomania. Tommy just couldn’t seem to break the custom. Anything with perceived value disappeared into his large pockets. Everyone else was concerned with the toys that disappeared, and, don’t get him wrong, Philza recognized the issue there. Tommy could get into severe trouble if people’s possessions were stolen by him. 

Yes, taking toys and whatnot concerned him. But what worried him the most was the food. 

Because there could be reasons for taking items. Greed, envy, sloth. They weren’t good reasons, but they were easily explained nonetheless. But as Philza emptied his kid’s pockets, it wasn’t sweets that made up the majority of his snatches. Oh, he recognized some of Tommy’s preferred candies, and that made sense, but what worried him was the crackers. Parts of bread rolls. Energy bars. Things that could be kept in pockets safely. And even things that couldn’t, like cereal or a partly eaten apple that was no longer edible. 

Tommy met his eyes, chin tilted defiantly. A challenge in his vibrant blue eyes. Philza’s heart sank. He could think of a reason to steal food, but it didn’t make sense. Philza made sure that all of his boys ate well, and never went hungry. He had privately sworn on the day he’d found them that they’d never starve again. Midnight meals hadn’t stopped, and it was usually Tommy who he found most during them, hiding guilt in his eyes and making jokes that were too loud for the early dawn hours. Philza would end up making him food, and sometimes someone else (usually Technoblade) would join in, woken by the smell of nourishment.

“Why would you take food?” 

“Wil said I could, so it’s all good,” Tommy said confidently. That was the other problem; he never seemed to recognize the issue with his theft. 

“Stealing is bad, Tommy,” Philza sighed.

“Yeah. Unless I do it, then it’s all good, Wil said so,” Tommy replied, jerking his chin up. 

“Why...why would Wilbur say that? Why would it be ok for you?” He was tired at this point. The elementary school kept sending him angry calls. Well, they always did, but more than normal.

“It’s cause I need it, innit? Wilbur said that he reckons it’s fine because we needed it.” 

“Are you hungry then?”

“I-well-” Tommy was brought up short, speechless, a thing he rarely was. He made a noise somewhere between babbling and a door that had never been oiled. His shoulders raised defensively. His eyes looked anywhere but at Philza. 

It must have been a habit, in the days before Philza. If the difference was between crime and their lives, there couldn’t be hesitation. It seemed Wilbur, or whatever his name was during that time, had crushed out the social inhibition in the young Tommy in the name of survival. Tommy on some level likely knew that he had no reason to steal, but instinct said to anyways. Philza didn’t know how to break the practice. He could argue morals all he wanted; the rules of survival wouldn’t care.

As Tommy got older, the tendency diminished and grew like the moon. Philza remembered them going out to celebrate when they had realized they’d gone a year without incident. Tommy never tried to hide his thefts, per say. But he never really noticed them, or thought them important. Sometimes he was just as surprised to find a swindled item in his possession. Without fail, Philza could pinpoint whenever Tommy was stressed or scared, because the cabinets would be missing items, or the fridge emptier than it was last night. Whenever he noticed the behavior, he would gently ask Tommy what was wrong. He was a child who wore his heart in his sleeve, so it never took long for the problem to come spilling from his lips. Then, the behavior would stop, because Tommy was safe. 

Still. While rare, the impulse never died. 

—-

Tubbo had been unexpected, but then they all were. 

The embrace had been one sided at first, but then frozen hands had wrapped around Philza as the child pressed his shivering form into the adult’s chest. Body heat was the best option he had, once they’d gotten him into dry clothing. Tommy was taller than the new child, but they had the same painful thinness as Tommy had when Philza first found him in the fridge. 

Wilbur gave Philza a piercing look, a product of lingering suspicion left over from a confrontation that never occurred, before he went off to gather as many blankets as he could. When he returned, Philza’s other two boys came also, Technoblade apparently having been deemed the pack mule and carrying all the blankets that had been wrangled up. For a moment, Philza could picture him crying, “revenge!” and dumping them onto the misdirected results of his anger, likely Philza and the freezing child, but he merely cried, “revenge!” And dumped them onto the floor for Tommy and Wilbur to pick up. Soon, both Philza and the stray child were cocooned. The child’s heartbeat fluttered in its cage sluggishly, and Philza hugged them tighter to himself.

It took time for him to recover. Philza distinctly remembered the first time he opened his eyes. 

They were empty. 

Vaguely they would trace his movement, before slowly blinking. It scared Philza. There hardly seemed to be a person in there at all. 

The first time he spoke was strange as well. Everyone was in the living room, and Technoblade and Tommy were fighting over the remote. Philza kept an eye on them over his book; it wasn’t uncommon for them to turn to violence, the outcome of which was always the same. Technoblade would win (not to say Tommy didn’t put up a fight, but the age gap was substantial, and, of course, Technoblade refused to lose), the pair would be patched up (Technoblade hogging (pun fully intended sue me) the bathroom to clean up, and Tommy wasting another fifty bandaids, grumbling about how he, “almost had him.”), and the television banned for a week. Wilbur would protest, but Philza could never be sure he wouldn’t rile up his hotheaded brothers in order to get sole command of the remote. Again.

But the pair’s bickering came to a stop when the boy finally spoke. 

“Who are you?” His cadence was unusual, tilting and whispy and vacant in a way that was haunting. Maybe he had frozen to death in that box on the side of the road and what stood before them was merely a ghostly imprint of a child.

Everyone paused for a moment, before his boys rushed to introduce themselves. Philza smiled at their antics, before sorting them into speaking one at a time, introducing himself last.

“And what’s your name?” He finished. 

The child’s hollow eyes drifted to meet his. Philza wondered if they were perpetually wide and unfocused. 

“Yeah! Any name you want!” Tommy yelled excitedly. 

“What does that mean?” The child asked after a pause, tilting his head.

“Well, I got stuck with Tommy, because The Blade already said it, but that’s fine because Tommy was already the best name anyways,” Tommy explained. Technoblade snorted in amusement.

“Technoblade isn’t a family name, if you’re wondering,” the pig-humanoid added.

“Why did you pick it out?” The child inquired.

“Uhhhhhhhh. No comment. I thought it fit, I guess,” the teen responded awkwardly.

“And Wilbur Soot fit too, because Wil is a dirty crime boy!” Tommy chimed in. Wilbur protested. After a few more minutes of antics, Philza murmured to the child.

“You don’t have to pick one right away,” he assured the unresponsive boy. He startled into animation once addressed. 

“I have one, though,” he whispered back. 

“Already?”

“Yes. You can call me Tubbo.”

“That’s a good choice, Tubbo,” Philza smiled. The others agreed, Tommy shouting that it was a great name, not as manly as Tommy, but still cool. 

Upon hearing his new name uttered by the people (not family yet, but soon) around him, Tubbo’s eyes suddenly focused, filling with a quiet sort of mirth. His hollow face filled in, no longer abandoned by the child who had retreated into himself. He took residence in himself. His smile erased any trace of doubt in Philza’s mind that he would be ok. 

He would always be a little caught up in his own thoughts, but in a loud household he learned how to make his presence known. As years went on, his eyes were still wide and owlish, his voice still high and flittering, but never again was he gone entirely. 

Sometimes, Philza would see the shade of a frozen shell of a child overlay the features of his son, but then Tubbo’s gaze would catch his, and his pale eyes would fill with life and laughter. 

—-

Tommy and Tubbo’s question still rang in the air as Philza carefully thought the answer over. 

“Well, in your case, Tubbo,” he began, poking his nose, “we found a free puppy sign and thought, “why not?” As for you, Tommy…” at this point he carded his hands through his son’s hair, getting squawks of protest.

“When a Daddy loves food very much, he goes for a midnight snack. And sometimes, just sometimes, he finds a couple of rascals robbing him…”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. First fanfic and all that. I never planned this. My hand slipped, I guess. Just wanna make sure it’s clear, these are not the people, but the characters. I mean I don’t think Technoblade is a weird pig-human-monstrosity in real life but you never know. Also tried to respect his wishes to not be in the family dynamic as much. so. 
> 
> I mixed in a few theories and head canons and whatever I thought sounded cool at the time.
> 
> I feel like I didn’t do Wilbur well but. *shrug*
> 
> Hope you liked it. If not, come fight me in real life. You’ll probably win but it’ll be interesting to try and explain to my family why I’m in the hospital.


End file.
